Interest in this weblog jumped this week after a reference from Carlotta, of daretoknow. Here is a link
http://daretoknowblog.blogspot.com/
An inspection team spending a week in a secondary school had a chance of finding out what was going on beneath the surface. We could still be fooled. At a school in Cambridgeshire, for example, I was told after the inspection that the whole staff had been put on break and lunchtime duty every day for the week of the inspection. The orderly movement we saw between the school's two sites might have had something to do with this, or it could, of course, have been quite normal. Another secondary school did not try to hide that poor behaviour during breaks was the result of inadequate supervision, but could do nothing about it. The head was reduced to trying to patrol the school herself, an impossible task.
At least she was honest, which leads me to a stronger example of a man who told the truth despite pressure to hide it. A large, self-regarding secondary school in the West Country had recently appointed a headteacher who had interesting and innovative management ideas, including very good ideas for training senior staff. The inspection took place in his first term, and the school was badly disciplined. One pupil was suspended during the inspection for kicking another in the head, and another for spraying a teacher with an aerosol, after she had begged him not to as she was asthmatic. A senior teacher in charge of the induction of new staff told us that he had tissues permanently on hand to wipe the tears of young women teachers who were abused by older boys. These teachers confirmed the abuse to a senior female inspector on our team . We found behaviour unsatisfactory. The governors' reaction was to accuse me of bias and distortion - despite all of our evidence - and to press the head to complain to Ofsted. He wrote a letter requesting clarification, which I provided, but refused to complain. The governors sacked him. The experience left me in no doubt that much responsiiblity for the state of schools, and particularly secondary schools, lies with hypocritical and dishonest local councillors who are more interested in saving face than in knowing the truth. In this case, an honest man was the victim, and the fact that I could do nothing about it is a source of abiding frustration. Naming the school would not get him his job back.
